Rwanda genocide commemoration: keynote address by Rwanda High Commissioner Williams Nkurunziza

Your Excellency Kamalesh Sharma, Commonwealth Secretary-General

Hon. Lord Jack McConnell, Chairman,

All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region

Hon. Ian Lucas, Member of UK Parliament

Your Excellencies Ambassadors and High Commissioners

Distinguished Guests

Fellow Rwandans

Ladies and Gentlemen

Twenty years ago, we were all witnesses to a terrible tragedy. Decades of wrong choices, poor judgements, twisted partnerships, politics of divisionism and impunity destroyed the culture of unity that had held the Rwandan socio-political entity into one coherent unit for centuries and fuelled ‘artificial’ ethnic hatred that exploded into the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi that left over a million of our people dead and a nation in tatters within a short span of 100 days.

They died while the world watched, as if shocked into a dispassionate indifference or deliberate inaction. Like one wise person once said, the world does not suffer because of the actions of bad people; it suffers because of the silence of good people. Because the good people failed to speak, the bad people had the space to turn into animals and wreck havoc in our land. Some 20 years after that shameful tragedy, many people are still trying to come to grips with those acts of self-betrayal – for having allowed genocide to occur on their watch. Some have even sought to find a source of catharsis in acts of denial. Some would rather call what happened by another name in the hope that this might minimize their sense of horror and shame; that it would drive away their nightmares.

It is against this backdrop that our theme for this year – Remember – Unite - Renew – must be understood. It is also against this backdrop that this year’s programme of remembrance and mourning must be undertstood. For the next 100 days from today, Rwandans at home and abroad will participate in acts of reflection and remembrance leading to the 7th April when we will formally mark the 20th Anniversary of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. In UK, the April event will be held in Birmingham and it is my earnest hope that all of you gathered here today will join us in the West Midlands on 12th April.

At this hour, however, as Rwandans here and at home, we are deeply grateful to His Excellency Kamalesh Sharma, Secretary General of the Commonwealth, and his team for partnering with us in marking this important day in our history. Your solidarity reinforces our faith in the Commonwealth and its values as enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter. We are equally grateful to our distinguished guests and speakers today. Your presence lightens the burdens of the moment; you demonstrate that past indifference has surrendered to compassion. Our journey of reconstruction and renewal over the last two decades has benefitted from the support of our international friends, including governments and citizens of many countries around the world. To all of them, especially to the people of the United Kingdom, we hold an eternal debt of gratitude.

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests;

In our theme, we focus on ‘remember’ because we have a duty to remember all those who lost their lives during one of the darkest points in human history. We also stand in solidarity with, and as a source of comfort for, all those who survived; all those who lost their friends and families and who still struggle, today, to come to terms with the horrors of the genocide. You heard the testimonies. We cannot wish away their ghosts through acts of remembrance. But we can clothe them in our compassion and assure them that in times of emotional vulnerability, they have us to lean on.

As we remember, we also invite the rest of the world to pause and share in this act of remembrance and to learn from our tragic experience in the hope that our horrors are not visited on others around the world, certainly not on our watch and not through our collective inaction or indifference as happened in Rwanda in 1994. This is our call to the global community to stand together against genocide, everywhere.

Equally, our theme focuses on the imperative of unity because we wish to highlight the journey we have travelled since 1994; particularly to demonstrate that out of the desolation of genocide has risen a spirit of unity that has allowed the rebirth of a new Rwanda, united and reconciled. We took the path of self-annihilation because we forgot the importance of unity and embraced exclusionism. We promoted what divided us and belittled our commonality and our common humanity. Over the last 20 years, we have sought to rebuild our singularity as a nation and as a people. This has informed our political choices, particularly in as far as they put citizens’ rights at the forefront of all governance processes. Contrary to the pre-1994 period when the politics of exclusion reigned supreme, today, our constitution is built on one simple, but unimpeachable truth: that Rwanda belongs to all of us; that we cannot chart its future through squabbles or genocide denials, but through consensus building, power sharing and an unrelenting commitment to reconciliation.

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests;

True reconciliation must be built on a foundation of fairness, of justice done, not perceived to be done. One of the biggest challenges our leaders faced after the genocide was how to administer justice in so fractured a society. You all know we found our solution in Gacaca courts. In Gacaca courts, Rwanda elected to travel the route of restorative, not punitive justice. The model allowed for a brutal, but necessary, conversation between the perpetrator and the community as well as between the perpetrator and the victim. In essence, the whole community participated in a painful search for the truth, a necessary condition for understanding and acceptance.

Contrary to the conventional justice system where a killer goes to jail still claiming innocence, Gacaca courts allowed for open and personal confessions and pleas for forgiveness. We know that genocide dehumanises both the victim and perpetrator. Confession humanises. It demonstrates that you are not an animal, entirely incapable of contrition. Your act of remorse shows you are weak and desire others to feel for you even in your lowest manifestation of the human spirit. In essence, your remorse humanises you.

Confession is a necessary condition for forgiving. Forgiving is a factor for informed, though emotional, acceptance of a particular individual’s transgressions. Combined, acceptance, education and forgiveness are key building blocks of enduring reconciliation.

This process of reconciliation has been very central to Rwanda’s journey of national healing. It is a process that has worked and delivered positive results. It is a process that deserves support not condemnation as we hear from negationists. We are now working hard to consolidate the gains of reconciliation by building a stronger justice system to ensure impunity is given no space in our society. That is why we outlawed the death penalty and entrenched due process in our justice administration.  That is why we set up oversight institutions to monitor and guide the process of governance. That is why we outlawed discrimination in all its manifestations.

As a consequence, today, our children are not Hutu, Tutsi or Twa, the three words manipulated by bad politicians to spark off a terrible national fracture. Our children are Rwandans and enjoy equal opportunity in school, health and employment. The result of this stance has been phenomenal. Rwanda is now one of few countries in Africa set to deliver on all MDGs. Indeed, we have already delivered on:

• Universal Primary Education  - with 98% enrolment.
• Maternal Health – with 69% of all deliveries assisted by skilled personnel
• Child Mortality – manifest in an 11.1% average annual decline over the last 20 years bringing Rwanda’s rate in line with the global average.
• Poverty Reduction – with a 12.5% decline in poverty levels, elevating over a million people above the poverty line in five years
• Taming the scourge of malaria and the HIV pandemic, which now stands at only 3%.

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests;

Today, all Rwandan citizens, by law, enjoy equal political, social and economic opportunity and mobility. Nowhere else is this most apparent as in the sensitive area of women empowerment. Not only do women control 64% of our Parliament; but they also represent over 37% of Cabinet; 50% of senior managerial positions and 45% of all SMEs in our country. And this profile of women empowerment is not window dressing. People empowement has become part of our culture and reflects our commitment to all our people, not to a section of the population. Indeed, it is happening at a time when rating agencies like the London-based MO Ibrahim index rate Rwanda as only one of two countries in Africa that have registered consistent overall governance improvement since 2000. Equally, women entrepreneurs are entering the market against a backdrop of robust economic growth and excellent business climate. Over the last decade or so, our economy has expanded by 300% while the World Bank rates Rwanda as one of the top four best countries in which to do business in Africa and among the top 50 best performers in the world.

Going forward, we renew our commitment to build a more peaceful, united and prosperous society for our people. Our ambitions are articulated in our Vision 2020, the year when we hope to become a knowleded-based middle-income service economy. To achieve this objective, we must grow our economy by 11.5% annually until the end of the decade. A daring ambition, indeed, and one that requires, as Nadine Gordimer would put it, that we “keep our figures on the controls of purpose.”

Clearly, where we are and where we aim to be is a long way from the basket case of 1994. Good leadership and the hard work of ordinary people have delivered opportunity out of the improbable. As we stand on the threshold of the third decade after the genocide, we do so with a strong sense of optimism rooted in our abiding faith in our resilience; in our commitment to reconciliation; and in the simple, but unimpeachable truth that: we are all her children and together we can build enduring peace and shared prosperity. Or as our President, His Excellency Paul Kagame, has said; “We can travel farther by walking together.” To do this is to honor those we lost in the pogrom, it is to show they did not die in vain.

As I close, let me leave you with a quotation from one of my published poems entitled: I wish to Open Your Grave, that captures, both our past of pain and faith in a future of promise:

I thrive on your memories

I am anchored by new stories

I am enthralled by shrines

Erected to celebrate lifelines

Not to a past of enveloping pain

But to a future without strain

I thank you for your attention and wish you all a happy new year.